mothers also completed two surveys:
one examining depressive symptoms
and the other measuring their worries
about their infants when the mothers
woke up at night. The researchers
found that mothers with the most
depressive symptoms were more likely
to worry excessively about their infants’
starving or feeling abandoned at night
and wake them than mothers with
fewer symptoms of depression. (Child
Development, May/June)

n By the age of 9 months, babies
are better at recognizing faces and
emotional expressions of people
of their own race, finds research by
psychologists at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst. The team
placed EEG recording sensors on 48
infants’ heads to record their brain
activity as they viewed happy and sad
people of their own race and of an
unfamiliar race. Results showed that
5-month-old infants were equally able to
distinguish faces from both races, while
the 9-month-old infants were better at
telling apart two faces within their own
race. Infants were also found to shift
their processing of face-related emotion
information from the front of the brain
to the back of the brain. (Developmental
Science, May)

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Mothers with the most depressive symptoms were more likely to worry excessively
about their infants starving or feeling abandoned at night, a study found.

n Teens’ impulsive behavior hasroots in basic brain function, findsresearch out of the University ofVermont. Researchers used fMRI tomonitor brain responses in 1,89614-year-olds as they moved one handin response to a stream of commands.The researchers found that teens witha history of using alcohol, cigarettesand illegal drugs — though not underthe influence during the study — hadimpulse control problems associatedwith diminished activity in their brains’orbitofrontal cortex. The researchers saythe differences in these brain networksseem to precede drug use. (NatureNeuroscience, online April 29)

n White public school teachers in theNew York metropolitan area appear togive more positive feedback to minoritystudents than to white students forequal work, concludes research led byRutgers University investigators. In thestudy of 113 white middle school andhigh school teachers in the New Yorkmetropolitan area, participants read andcommented on a poorly written studentessay. Results showed that the teachersdisplayed a “positive feedback bias,”providing more praise and less criticismwhen they thought the essay waswritten by a minority student than bya white student. (Journal of EducationalPsychology, online April 30)